NATO kaput! (borders, rating, terrorism, state)

[Vector1]

Originally Posted by mohawkx

It's more than that and you know it. It's not just about fair share for Trump. It's about control. He rips up every multilateral agreement we have with every world organization and nation and then say's, "Let's negotiate".
That way everything becomes Trump.
NAFTA becomes Trump
Pacific Rim becomes Trump.
European union becomes Trump.
Canada becomes Trump.
Mexico Becomes Trump
Japan becomes Trump.
He's doing everything he can to make China Trump.

And on and on and on. The man is an infantile, insecure dictator.
He only respects Putin, his benefactor and the conduit for all the money he has accumulated since 1988.

So are you implying most of what he has done thus far regarding renegotiated deals like NAFTA have been bad for America, compared to what they were

[mohawkx]

Originally Posted by Vector1

So are you implying most of what he has done thus far regarding renegotiated deals like NAFTA have been bad for America, compared to what they were

Yes.

[Buckeye77]

As a poster on another site said, during Trump's visit to France, he scored a like new French Army rifle - never fired, only dropped once.

[Quick Enough]

Originally Posted by mohawkx

Yes.

NATO is our friend. They also rip off America. They have been ripping us off forever. We saved their butts — before there even was a NATO — in World War I They messed up, and 116,456 Americans had to die to save their butts.

Then they messed up again for the next two decades because West Europeans are effete and so obsessed with their class manners and their rules of savoir faire and their socialist welfare states and their early retirements that they did not have the character to stand up to Hitler in the 1930s. Peace in our time. So they messed up, and we had to save their butts again. And another 405,399 Americans died for them during World War II. And then we had to rebuild them! And we had to station our boys in Germany and all over their blood-stained continent. So, hey, we love those guys. We love NATO.

And yet they still rip us off. We pay 4% of our gigantic gross domestic product to protect them, and they will not pay a lousy 2% of their GDP towards their own defense. Is there a culture more penny-pinching-cheap-and-stingy than the fine constituents of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization? These cheap baseborn prigs will not pay their fare. They are too cheap. They expect America to send boys to die for them in one world war, then another — hundreds of thousands — and then to pay for their NATO defense even a century later. And then they have the temerity to cheat us further in trade

Long before Trump, they set up tariffs against us for so many things If the average American knew how badly Europe has been ripping us off for decades with their tariffs, no one in this country would buy anything European again. We would say, as a matter of self-respect and personal pride, “I no longer will buy anything but American, no matter what it costs.”

Every American President has complained about the cheating and imbalance — the NATO penny-pinching-cheapness, the tariff and trade imbalances. In more recent years, the various Bushes complained about it. Even Obama complained about it. But they all did it so gently, so diplomatically. They would deliver the sermon, just as the pastor predictably tells the church-goers on Sunday morning that he is against sin, and the Europeans would sit quietly and nod their heads — nodding from sleeping, not from agreeing — and then they would go back out and sin some more. Another four years of America being suckered and snookered. All they had to do was give Obama a Nobel Peace Prize his ninth month in office and let Kerry ride his bike around Paris.

So Trump did what any effective negotiator would do: he took note of past approaches to NATO and their failures, and correctly determined that the only way to get these penny-pinching-cheap baseborn prigs to pay their freight would be to bulldoze right into their faces, stare them right in their glazed eyes with cameras rolling, and tell them point-blank the equivalent of: “You are the cheapest penny-pinching, miserly, stingy, tightwadded skinflints ever. And it is going to stop on my watch. Whatever it takes from my end, you selfish, curmudgeonly cheap prigs, you are going to pay your fair share. I am not being diplomatic. I am being All-Business: either you start to pay or, wow, are you in for some surprises! And you know what you read in the Fake News: I am crazy! I am out of control! So, lemme see. I know: We will go to trade war! How do you like that? Maybe we even will pull all our troops out of Europe. Hmmm. Yeah, maybe. Why not? Sounds good. Well, let’s see.”

So Trump stuffed it into their quiche-and-schnitzel ingesting faces. And he convinced them — thanks to America’s Seedier Media who are the real secret to the “Legend That is Trump” — that he just might be crazy enough to go to trade war and to pull American boys home. They knew that Clinton and Bush x 2 and Kerry and Hillary and Nobel Laureate Obama never would do it. But they also know that Trump just might. And if they think they are going to find comfort and moderating in his new advisers, John Bolton and Mike Pompeo, alongside him…. Nuh-uh.


So CNN and the Washington Post and all the Seedier Media attacked Trump for days: He is destroying the alliance! He attacks our friends!

[Brave New World]

Originally Posted by Quick Enough

NATO is our friend. They also rip off America. They have been ripping us off forever. We saved their butts — before there even was a NATO — in World War I They messed up, and 116,456 Americans had to die to save their butts.

Then they messed up again for the next two decades because West Europeans are effete and so obsessed with their class manners and their rules of savoir faire and their socialist welfare states and their early retirements that they did not have the character to stand up to Hitler in the 1930s. Peace in our time. So they messed up, and we had to save their butts again. And another 405,399 Americans died for them during World War II. And then we had to rebuild them! And we had to station our boys in Germany and all over their blood-stained continent. So, hey, we love those guys. We love NATO.

And yet they still rip us off. We pay 4% of our gigantic gross domestic product to protect them, and they will not pay a lousy 2% of their GDP towards their own defense. Is there a culture more penny-pinching-cheap-and-stingy than the fine constituents of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization? These cheap baseborn prigs will not pay their fare. They are too cheap. They expect America to send boys to die for them in one world war, then another — hundreds of thousands — and then to pay for their NATO defense even a century later. And then they have the temerity to cheat us further in trade

Long before Trump, they set up tariffs against us for so many things If the average American knew how badly Europe has been ripping us off for decades with their tariffs, no one in this country would buy anything European again. We would say, as a matter of self-respect and personal pride, “I no longer will buy anything but American, no matter what it costs.”

Fiirstly lots of countries suffered as a result of WW2 and the US did not win the war single handedly, for instance the British and Commonwealth as well as the Russians were instrumental in terms of the European theatre and even in North Africa, the Far East and in terms Atlantic and naval forces.

Secondly during the Cold War most of Europe had conscription coupled with much higher gdp defence spending.

Finally the US may spend 4% of GDP on defence but it spends less than 5% of this money on Europe and only has around 5% of regular US Military Persoonnel based in Europe.

Some of the benefits of NATO are explained here -

Originally Posted by Atlantic Council

• Non-US NATO members have 1,857,000 active duty service members and 1,232,290 reservists. The seven largest non-US NATO member armies have the same number of active duty troops as the United States (1.3 million).
• Non-US NATO members can deploy 6,983 battle tanks, 34,000 armored vehicles, 2,600 combat aircraft, 382 attack helicopters, 252 major naval craft (including submarines), and 1,582 patrol and surface combatants.
• France and the United Kingdom alone provide 30 percent of the Alliance’s ballistic-missile-submarine fleet.
• NATO's European members are beginning to host the first stages of the Alliance’s new ballistic-missile-defense system aimed at preventing long-range attacks by rogue states on the United States and Europe.
• NATO members frequently share intelligence across the Alliance, aiding US operations and intelligence-gathering. The United Kingdom, France, and Germany alone add 40,000 intelligence personnel to the Alliance’s intelligence capabilities.
• Non-US NATO members host twenty-eight US main operating bases in Europe, which cut down on the time needed for the United States to respond to a crisis and are critical for US missions in the Middle East and North Africa.
• In 2009, for example, Germany contributed $800 million to offset and improve its US bases.

• NATO has five active missions around the world deploying 18,000 troops.
• Since the end of the Cold War, NATO has completed thirteen missions including two in the United States (Hurricane Katrina relief and post-9/11 air reconnaissance patrol).
• NATO allies contributed thousands of troops to the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, including 38,000 in 2011, saving the United States an estimated $49 billion that year. The operation in Afghanistan was the first and only time NATO's mutual defense commitment was invoked.
• Non-US members sustained more than 1,000 combat deaths in Afghanistan, with an additional one hundred lost by NATO partners.
• Non-US NATO members contributed more than 60 percent of assets for Operation Unified Protector in Libya.
• Non-US Coalition members flew one-third of all coalition airstrikes against the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) in Operation Inherent Resolve.
• NATO’s Operation Ocean Shield against piracy in the Gulf of Aden has been led at different times by Denmark, Spain, Norway, Italy, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and Portugal.
• US trade with the European Union reached $699 billion in 2015, only made possible because of the security and stability provided by NATO.
• US exports to the former Communist NATO member states (not including East Germany) grew from $0.9 billion in 1989 to $9.4 billion in 2016.
• Non-US NATO members rely heavily on the US defense industry to supply their forces. Currently, European members are planning to purchase as many as 500 new F-35s from the United States.

Here's Why the United States Needs NATO - Atlantic Council

[Quick Enough]

Originally Posted by Brave New World

Fiirstly lots of countries suffered as a result of WW2 and the US did not win the war single handedly, for instance the British and Commonwealth as well as the Russians were instrumental in terms of the European theatre and even in North Africa, the Far East and in terms Atlantic and naval forces.

Secondly during the Cold War most of Europe had conscription coupled with much higher gdp defence spending.

Finally the US may spend 4% of GDP on defence but it spends less than 5% of this money on Europe and only has around 5% of regular US Military Persoonnel based in Europe.

Some of the benefits of NATO are explained here -

Gee, a think tank, Atlantic Council, run by a guy who took journalism in college.

[Brave New World]

Originally Posted by Quick Enough

Gee, a think tank, Atlantic Council, run by a guy who took journalism in college.

Facts are facts.

If the US leaves NATO it will no longer have access to military bases and intelligence facilities in Europe, and it should be noted that European NATO allies account for around 20% of global defence spending or around $230 Billion per annum, which is also collectively the largest amount in the world after the US.

Chinese government's official defense spending figure was $146 billion in 2016 by comparison, whilst Russia spent 3.9 trillion rubles ($61 billion) on defence in 2017.

As for the US in WW2, you did not win the war single handedly, and although there were many brave US Service Personnel, there were also extremely brave people who fought from other nations, and indeed laid down their lives.

Whilst in terms of the cold war, as already explained Europe did spend a lot on defence during the Cold War and many countries had mandatory military conscription on both sides of the political and ideological divide.

[Crazee Cat Lady]

Just another day in Trump land....Stab your friends in the back (the ones who have always stood beside you), embrace your enemies (the ones who would most like to stab you in the back), distance yourself from your allies and other organizations that stand for democracy, align yourself with
Dictators and Murderers who wish to see democracy fall around the world, attack the free press,
The Judicial branch of Government, support voter suppression, demand your political opponent be
locked up....demean and attack

the other half of America who doesn't bow down to worship at the orange God's throne.



Your friend is your enemy and your enemy is your friend, good is bad and bad is good,
up is down and down is up. Don't believe what you see or hear...



God help us all.

[snj90]

Originally Posted by Winterfall8324

And you don’t Ryan?

You want the imperialist war machine to keep chugging?

War machine? NATO actually helps prevent war, and it ultimately makes the world safer for America. The positives of NATO far outweigh the negatives, although the Russian propaganda machine certainly wants to make Americans think otherwise.

[snj90]

Originally Posted by atltechdude

After Putin's ***** Comrade Trump won the 2016 election through Russian interference install him as POTUS, in one of the most successful counterintel operations in history, this just might be Putin's biggest payoff.

If Putin can convince a sizable percentage of the US population that NATO should be disbanded, that would be a huge win for him. How can he do this? Well it just got a lot easier. Through the unquestioned fanatical loyalty to the maniac that now typifies right wing culture in this country, all he has to convince is the maniac himself to pull the trigger, and just like that, Putin's greatest adversary in Europe is removed and the whole board opens up for him to annex anything he wants.

MRGA!

It wouldn't play out quite like that. And if NATO were disbanded and this scenario fails to materialize after a reasonably brief period of time, the anti-NATO crowd would claim that they were correct. Well, they're not correct. The impact on the longer-term power balance in Europe would be inimical to American interests. Eventually, and it may take decades to come about, another major European war that draws America in may well occur.